EDITORIAL RECLASSIFICATION

BACKGROUND

The Office of the Law Revision Counsel is responsible for maintaining and publishing the United States Code. An integral part of producing the Code is determining where new laws should be placed. This is a challenging task because new law must be placed not only to fit logically within existing Code categories, but also to allow room for future development. Over time, some areas of law outgrow their original boundaries due to the enactment of new laws and amendments. Some parts of the Code become less efficient as organizational units due to repeals, transfers, or obsolescence of a significant portion of the laws that are collected there. As a result, the Code becomes less organized, harder to navigate, and less reflective of the underlying structure of the statutes.

In order to maintain and improve the United States Code, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel must occasionally undertake editorial reclassification projects to reorganize areas of law that have outgrown their original boundaries, or to eliminate organizational units that are no longer efficient. No statutory text is altered by such editorial reclassification projects, other than necessary updates to references to reflect the reorganization. Relevant provisions are merely transferred from one place to another in the Code.